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For Matheny, pair of 10-game winners carries weight

For Matheny, pair of 10-game winners carries weight

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By Chad Thornburg
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MLB.com |

ST. LOUIS -- Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said he walked through the weight room Friday and up on the board was a poll question asking whether the pitchers' wins and losses statistic should be abolished.

A question to which Matheny believes the answer is no.

"I think everybody always wants to know if there is any stat that is real deceiving, and that can be one," Matheny said. "But there also is a lot to be said about guys that just have the ability to go out and do enough to give their team a chance to win every time they pitch regardless of how good or bad they feel."

With a 6-1 victory over the Cubs on Thursday, Lance Lynn became the third 10-win pitcher in the National League, joining teammate Adam Wainwright and Washington's Jordan Zimmermann. Lynn's 28 wins since the start of the 2012 season are the most in the Majors.

Forty-one of the Cardinals' 47 wins have been awarded to a starting pitcher, the most by a Cardinals staff through 73 games since 2005, when the rotation also posted 41 victories.

"We'll take the 10 wins for each of those guys, and I know that they'd like to double that by the end of the season; that'd make for something pretty special," Matheny said. "Just like a stat with guys getting hits with [runners] in scoring position. There's just certain guys that know how to get it done. You can't take that away from them, because that's what the bottom line is."

Chad Thornburg is an associate reporter for MLB.com. T.R. Sullivan, a reporter for MLB.com, contributed to this report. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.